So you want to start an online business or create a blog for yourself. GREAT!

Most people have a secret, or not so secret, envy of those who work online running businesses they started themselves. The road from A to B can be extremely daunting.

People can get hung up for many different reasons.

  • How will I make money?
  • What will I sell?
  • How will I make money?
  • How do I put up a website?
  • How will I make money?
  • Who am I online?
  • Yes, but… How will I make money?

The first step is NONE of the above. None. Not even how will you make money! 🙂

The first step is to look at yourself and your life and dig in to who you are and what you’re passionate about. What do you think about constantly? What do you read about? What do you like to talk about at parties, or with your friends? What do you have maybe as a hobby now, that you wish you could do all the time?

Ask yourself those questions and come up with a list. (Maybe even a list of 30!) I would highly suggest a long list. Write down things that you think are ridiculous because maybe you just need to realize that it’s not ridiculous but really is a passion of yours.

Then give it a try. Write 5-10 articles, do research in that field, think of people you could interview, and start thinking of a product you could sell or service you could offer.

If at the end of 7 days you couldn’t write any more, and are out of steam, then that wasn’t it. Dig out your list of 30 things and try another one. And really think – what could I really become obsessed with???? What are you obsessed with??

Give that another 7 days and see what happens. You’ll hit on something.

Remember this is only the first step. The making money part won’t come until after this extremely important ground work is done. (Imagine waking up 6 months from now and realizing you can’t make money with your idea! These first steps make that possibility smaller and smaller.)

  1. Make a list of 30 topics or fields that you could become obsessed with and talk about and research all the time.
  2. Try it on for 7 days by writing 5-10 articles and doing at least 5-10 hours of research on.
  3. At the end of 7 days see what happened and if you need to – get out your list of 30 things and start over with a new passion.

I’ll be back soon to write more about what comes next when you do finally hit on the field or topic that will stick.